Navistar scales back plans for Lisle headquarters

March 04, 2010

Navistar International Corp. today unveiled a revised proposal for a new corporate headquarters in west suburban Lisle that sharply scales back a diesel engine and truck testing facility included in a controversial earlier plan.

Officials at a nearby school for autistic children and other neighbors have opposed the development in part because of worries about air pollution, noise, traffic and safety issues related to research and development at the former Alcatel-Lucent site, 2600 Warrenville Rd. Navistar, now based about three miles away in Warrenville, has maintained those fears are unfounded.

The truck and engine maker's new blueprint places the R&D facility about 1,000 feet farther from the school than the original plan did. It also would reduce the facility's size by about a third and cut diesel-fuel storage capacity by more than tenfold. A Navistar R&D center in Melrose Park would remain in its present location under the new plan rather than move, the company said.

Navistar's latest proposal sets the stage for a showdown before the Lisle village board of trustees expected sometime in April. The alterations won't appease determined opponents, said Lisle business owner Brian McClure, who belongs to group objecting to the Navistar plan.

"It doesn't matter that they've scaled it back," he said. "It will still affect people for hundreds of miles around."

Navistar intends to seek a tax-increment finance district based on its plan to invest more than $100 million in the project. It wants to move roughly 3,000 workers into the now-vacant corporate campus, 1,500 of whom will be new to the area, said Navistar Chief Executive Dan Ustian.

"With this plan we'll achieve our twin goals of creating jobs while being a good neighbor for our community," Ustian said.

Granting a TIF for the project would be "unfair" to the "small taxpayer," McClure contends. "People are outraged in this town."

Ustian said critics have mischaracterized Navistar. "It's a misrepresentation of what we are," he said in an interview. Based on the potential economic benefits to the community, he said, "This should have been a no-brainer."